vinguist

[vinguist]

Me sitting there as someone talked about how schizophrenic people who aren’t medicated should be locked up and should be forced to take their medication:

Me sitting there as an unmedicated schizophrenic who is actively hallucinating and just trying to survive but isn’t hurting anyone:

Seriously people just mind your own damn business. It’s none of your concern. Keep your opinions to yourself. You don’t know what the person next to you is dealing with or experiencing.

I truly don’t understand why people don’t understand that not every schizophrenic is running around being harmful to people and being a serial killer. That’s frankly, very uncommon.

[vinguist]

No matter what kind of mental illness you have, I always encourage people to take care of their physical health as much as they’re able to. Our bodies and minds are so closely linked, and poor physical health can lead to poor mental health, and vice versa.

Sure it might not “cure” your mental illness to drink more water, or get fresh air and sunlight, or exercise our bodies, or eat nutritious meals. But it will help, even just a little. Even putting just a bit of effort is better than nothing at all. Take a few extra sips of water, have a single piece of fruit, sit by the window and get some sunlight, do some chair yoga if you’re able to. Set aside some time to practice simple self care, and it just might turn a bad day into a not so bad day. Give it a try and see what works for you.

[vinguist]

As a visibly disabled person who doesn’t share my diagnoses publicly, I get a lot of people online and off who try to guess what my condition is unsolicited and it’s quite amazing the variety of things people have guessed.

My favourite though was a complete stranger who got chatting to me about like, the weather, and then out of nowhere very confidently asked “So do you have CFS/ME or is it cerebral palsy you’ve got?” As if those were the only two disabilities that exist and if it wasn’t one it would definitely be the other.

[vinguist]

I included some highlights from the article here, but I highly recommend reading this whole thing.

We hear so much about how wildfires that move into towns or cities devastate communities--but once the blazes have finally been extinguished the news usually moves on to the next crisis and we don't get to hear about how these communities and outside helpers rally together to rebuild afterwards. Including regrowing the trees and gardens that help provide shade and food security to neighborhoods.

From the article:

"The Altadena Seed Library, a network of seed exchange boxes, is leading the charge. Raj’s project began in 2021, with several little seed libraries stationed around the community. Seed libraries mimic regular libraries, but instead of books, people check out (and use) envelopes of seeds for free. Now, Raj and other volunteers are working on a game plan for regrowing the lawns, gardens, and urban green spaces that combat shade inequity and increase food sovereignty in their neighborhood — and looking to learn from other communities that have also seen their landscapes drastically altered by destructive wildfires. Donated seeds and tools are pouring in from locals and places around the country, as well as compost, pots, trees, and personal protective equipment for people cleaning up the hazardous waste leftover from burned homes and melted cars. “We’ve had a pretty overwhelming response,” Raj said. “People have been so, so generous.” Individual volunteers and organizations like Club Gay Gardens, a nonprofit in nearby Glendale, are helping sort the donated seeds. [...] Replanting efforts in Paradise, California, where the Camp Fire killed 85 people in 2018, and Lahaina, Hawai‘i, where a wildfire killed 102 people in 2023, offer inspiration as to what responsible reseeding can look like post-fire. Wildfire survivors from up and down the West Coast have already reached out to Raj, offering to help Altadena. “It’s so unfortunate to be bonded in that way,” Raj said. “It also feels really beautiful that those connections can grow out of something so tragic.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency helped test for soil toxicity in Paradise, eventually scraping the contaminated top layers away. But replanting efforts were left to residents. “None of this would have happened if it weren’t for these community groups that all came together,” said Jennifer Peterson, a Paradise local who saw her house, plus a seed library and two community gardens she worked on, destroyed. Peterson and other community members worked hard to safely reestablish old food sources. In 2020, several groups and 300 volunteers joined forces to rebuild — in one day — a nonprofit arts and culture center whose public gardens provide compost, seeds, and produce for free. Grant money allowed organizations like the Butte County Local Food Network to prepare 150 garden boxes and deliver them to people’s homes, complete with new soil and plants. Being part of efforts to regrow people’s food — and her front yard, which now teems with native wildflowers whose seeds survived the fire — has helped Peterson heal. “It was kind of like therapy for everybody,” she said.   In Lahaina, on Maui, where an estimated 150,000 trees burned, replanting efforts so far have focused on fruit trees that will eventually provide food and shade again, said Duane Sparkman, chair of the Maui County Arborist Committee and cofounder of Treecovery Hawaii, a nonprofit focused on replanting Lahaina.  So far, Treecovery Hawaii has raised half a million dollars to purchase trees at full price from local nurseries and give them to families who are rebuilding. The organization has established several hubs to grow more trees, and Sparkman said he’d like to buy a larger nursery space on central Maui. A detailed planting plan created by Maui County lays out what types of trees should get planted on the island, as well as the care they need.  Over 200 trees have been planted or are in pots on-site, ready to be put in the ground. That includes a mouthwatering array of fruit trees — mango, jackfruit, starfruit, avocado, citrus, and banana — fragrant plumeria and orchid trees, and native species like wiliwili, milo, koa, and lauhala trees. “Knowing that we’re going to be part of what’s eventually going to be the canopy for our grandchildren is immense for us,” Sparkman said."

[vinguist]

embarrassment has good bones

[vinguist]

Being a 9 year old tomboy was absolutely NOT accepted im tired of ppl assuming everyone born with a vagina gets "less pushback" for being any kind of GNC bc its flat out not true!!! Stip insisting it is!!!!!

[vinguist]

Some more advice for fellow adults: set your ego aside and let younger people (even kids!) educate and teach you. There is no shame in looking to a younger person for education and knowledge. It is, actually, a big facet of humanity that we teach each other - why, then, does that teacher need to be the Right Age in order for you to be willing to learn from them?

[vinguist]

like, okay, consent does literally just mean agree. which is what enables this little rhetorical trick. because there's all this cultural emphasis on sexual consent, which is just expressed as consent, a lot of phrases whose intended meanings are "rape is bad" can be taken literally to mean "i should get to agree to everything that happens in my vicinity."

[vinguist]

hello all, i noticed a lack of resource online for people who are curious about intersex genital mutilation scarring later in life without having to dig through surgery gore photos. i threw together some diagrams here (content warning for discussion of IGM and drawn genitalia diagrams) of the major surgeries that are completed on intersex children. worth noting this is based purely on my own research, and i am not a doctor, and i of course am not running around doing these surgeries myself. im absolutely free to corrections or adding more diagrams if other surgeries are brought up.

[vinguist]

Happy Black History Month!

What began as a simple reading list of forthcoming Black transfemme novels blossomed into a full critique of White supremacist publishing, Black literary erasure, and the supplementarity of the Black transfemme body as text 🖤

[vinguist]

hay naminhod kun he-a ya maid di kiingngohana (my love for you is beyond comparison)

happy international lesbian day <3

[mlm version]

[vinguist]

when i was a kid, a new family moved into our neighborhood. my parents wanted to welcome them, so my dad made a bowl of salsa and went over with my mom to introduce themselves. the husband of the new family was very excited when he got the salsa—he was a professional chef and as such no one ever made food for him because they always assumed he’d think it was bad, just because he was a good cook.

the moral of the story: give your artist friends art! give your writing friends writing! and give your chef friends food! even if they’re “better” at it than you. i can assure you that they’ll love it regardless because it came from you.

[vinguist]

U know how a laptop gets really slow and struggles if you haven’t shut it down in a while, or have too many programs open, and just closing down some unnecessary things or turning it off overnight can really give it a lease of life?

You’re kind of like that too. It’s okay if you’re feeling burned out to give yourself some time to just shut down and do nothing for a little while. It’s okay to need to put some things on the backburner if you’re juggling too much at once.

[vinguist]

An interesting snippet of music history highlighting how Ireland hasn’t always just been white.

[vinguist]

happy trans day of visibility! i really wanted to pay homage to my fellow irish transgender and non-binary people so decided to incorporate the trans symbol into the traditional claddagh design :) we get it rough here but i love this powerful, resilient community so much and i have faith that things will be better for irish trans folks some day. i love you all.

my ko-fi handle is nyctolust if you're willing and able to support a trans artist(?) directly!

[vinguist]

Hey just had someone try to tell me that I shouldn't use it/its pronouns because "gramatically that's what they/them is for" when I explained I use them in the same way you'd refer to an unknown supernatural entity/cryptid.

So on that note:

It/its users deserve to have their pronouns respected and used without argument or having to defend themselves with a reason why.

It/its pronouns are not inherently used to refer to the user as an object or animal, but it's also okay if they are.

Being nonhuman and/or using it/its pronouns doesn't mean you don't deserve rights or to be treated as anyone else.

Claiming that using it/its is gramatically incorrect to be used for non-objects or non-animals is the same as claiming that they/them can't be used to refer to a singular person (and is also laced with nonhumisia and alterhumisia).

Anyone can use it/its pronouns regardless of species identity, gender identity, or anything else.

Using other pronouns for an it/its user despite its wishes is more dehumanising to it than using its actual chosen pronouns will ever be. By denying it the right to use it/its pronouns, you are stripping it of the ability to decide what it wants for itself. It's hypocritical to claim that you don't use it/its for others because you don't want to dehumanise them.

Someone elses pronouns are not about you or your comfort. Use the pronouns people want to be used.

[vinguist]

Sometimes I forget that guys liking instagram models posts is like an entire issue some people have in their relationships honestly to god one of those things that makes me feel like an alien put on this earth to live amongst humans like do you think that instagram models are going to want to fuck your 4/10 Midwest boyfriend Brad who doesn’t wash his ass. and do you think him witnessing an attractive woman is cheating. What’s going on ever